Dan’s curious case of number nine

Dan Martin’s father, Neil believes his son’s Tour de France stage nine win on Sunday was written in the stars — and had everything to do with what he called ‘the curious case of number nine’.

“It’s that number nine, stage nine again isn’t it? he contests. “It’s the family’s lucky number, anything to do with nine seems to bring the family good luck, so the number nine, 18, 45, anything that adds up to nine or involves nine brings us luck and has been proven over and over again. He’s won a stage of the Tour, stage nine, and he also won stage nine of the Vuelta A Espana two years ago. It’s quite uncanny actually. A lot of the time number nine is involved. He’s in his 27th year, two plus seven?

“You can probably manufacture a nine out of most things but it is significant that he’s done stage nine of the Vuelta and the Tour...so get some money on him for the Giro d’Italia stage nine next year!”

His Tour is now made, says Neil, and he can just take the race as it comes from now on.

“He’s got out what he wanted. We’ve often said, a stage win or 11th? Which would be better? I can’t even remember who was third last year, not to mind 11th! So we’d much rather him go in and do what he’s done and win a stage and get out of it what he can.”

Interestingly, Dan tweeted on the morning of Sunday's epic stage, “In 1999 I had my 1st experience of letour on the roadside of Val Louron Azet. Today we race almost the same stage. #dreambigkids”

Then he did what he did on Sunday afternoon and could only laugh after at the irony of it all; “It is a stage that has some history for me. The first time I ever saw the Tour was a similar stage back in 1999.”